Dressed to the nines, switching from three-dimensional streets to two-dimensional shadows, Contrast pits you in a noir illusionist’s platformer telling you the story of a young lady's troubled upbringings in an early twenties New York. There’s nothing very subtle about it. Wherever it can, it attempts to sprinkle this style into the game with mixed results. But like JD Salinger said in Nine Stories, it’s less about showing-off and more like a young man attempting to shave with your left hand. Distinctly a small team game, reaping both the benefits and disadvantages of the small pairing.

Razor focused on it’s denouement, Contrast suffers from a lack of playtesting and is riddled with the graveyard of footnotes of an otherwise more complete platformer. The irony of the game is that the finished game is reminiscent of the vaudeville productions it attempts to recreate. In the moment, if you don’t linger the story accompanied by the gameplay is special. But if you do linger, you will find a game that fails in many ways. Too often does the two-dimensional space simply stop working as intended, not reading inputs and requiring you to re-enter the space as a reset. Too often the collectibles the game relies on a for progression are unreachable due to flaws in level layout after certain sequences are triggered, specifically in the circus act where the game comes off most rushed.

If Contrast is anything it’s multiple things. In a crowd of indie platformers it stands out. Most tend to be one thing and often they do their one thing better than Contrast’s individual parts. This isn’t to diminish the attempt to juggle but to acknowledge that there’s a bit of the mutton dressing as a lamb going on here. Despite the overdesign and lack of finish, the blend of stereotypes, mechanics and schtick of platformers on display in Contrast are worth experiencing.